A Phantom Life
by thesensiblemaroon
Summary: After awakening from a coma, Lincoln Loud discovers his family isn't what they use to be and vows to make up for the time he lost while gone. Things aren't what they seem though as Lincoln discovers more about how he ended up in a coma. Rated M for violence and coarse language. *cancelled*
1. Awakening

There are many sounds most people hate waking up to, the buzzing of alarms perched besides your bed, an elder sibling or parental figure urging you to get up… but the most worry one is a heart rate monitor.

I slowly began to open my eyes to the world around me, my blurred vision masking most of my sight from the horror I was in. As my vision cleared my worries were confirmed. I was in a hospital and not as a visitor. A nurse who was walking by noticed me out of the blue, before I could ask anything she gasp and run off shouting someone's name whom I assumed was the doctor.

I took this time to analyse the room, it looked like a private room since I could see no other beds or patients around me. I also noticed a vase of white flowers sitting to the left of me. Perhaps my family had a recent visit but that still didn't answer the question of what happened to me.

Luckily, the man I presumed was the doctor walked in and took a good hard look at me. He was bold with tan skin, he wore a long white cloak and glasses. He murmured to himself occasionally while writing something on his checkboard. It wasn't until he handed the checkboard off to the nurse that he began talking to me.

"Mr Loud, do you remember what happened to you before you ended up in this place" the doctor asked in, what I assumed was, a Pakistani accent.

"I was… I think I…" I stammered out, trying to think of the last thing I had done "I don't know."

The doctor nodded at the nurse then turned back to me with a slight grin on his face.

"Mr loud, my name is Dr Stari Prijatelj, this might come to you as a surprise, but you have been here much longer than you think." He explained in a calm demeanour, "But first I will need you to answer some questions."

He politely took the clipboard out of the nurse's hands and began writing on it ask he asked me questions.

"What is your name?" "Lincoln Loud." "How old are you?" "Eleven." "What town where you raised in?" "Royal Woods, Michigan." "How many siblings do you have?" "Ten sisters."

Dr Stari went silently as he wrote on his checkboard which carefully covered the lower parts of his face. When he was done writing he put down the clipboard and grabbed a seat next to my bed. His expression became very serious.

"Mr loud, this might be hard to take in but please try to remain as calm as possible. You are not eleven, you are seventeen, you have been in a coma for six years-"

What! I began to freak out as he said that, six years of my life have been spent laying on a hospital bed. The heart rate monitor sped up, I struggled to settle down, but Dr Stari and the nurse had me pinned and kept telling me to remain calm. After a while, I stopped but I still wasn't over it.

"Good, now that your settled I can get into why. A day before your birthday you were kidnapped by a gang and taken to an unknown location. While you were there, the gang that captured you got into some complications with another gang and… you were caught in the middle. An explosion went off and you were left to die, if not for the local authorities you wouldn't be laying there." Dr Stari explained.

The story started to make sense in my head, I remember the kidnapping and the explosion… but not much between that. I looked up to see a worried look on his face, obviously he wasn't done yet.

"you were immediately rushed to hospital and treated for serious injuries including shrapnel imbedding and third-degree burns, we also had to treat you for one other major injury." Dr Stari elaborated as he pulled out an x-ray image and placed it on a glowing board.

The image was a torso, most likely mine, but something was off about it. What looked to be the lower half of the left arm was blanked out. Worryingly, I raised my left arm to find my suspicions to be true. The lower half of my arm was replaced with what looked to be a prosthetic limb with a hook on the end. A wire attached to the hook fed down and under the prosthetic plastic which now replaced my phantom limb. Yet again, I freaked out as the heart rate monitor went into overdrive. I had almost managed to break lose from the doctor's grip until I felt a sharp pain in my right arm. My head fell back as I lost all control of my body and returned to the place I had been for six years…

…

…

I reopened my eyes yet again, this time coming to grip with my surroundings much quicker. Dr Stari was already standing over me with a hardened look on his face. I small array of light reflected from his glasses as he walked over to one of the side tables and pulled out a mirror.

"Since you have been in a coma for quite some time, I am obliged to show you how you look nowadays" Dr Stari explained as he held the mirror up to where I could see it.

I looked at my face and it was certainly different to what I was used to. My face was long and skinny with an arc where my nose is, speaking of which, my nose was also a lot smaller. My face still had the familiar features like my freckles and the outlines on the side of my eyes. My hair was still pristine white with my ever-famous fringe, it had grown a little longer around the back and my cowlick was missing all together. Needless to say, for someone who's been in a coma for six years, I wasn't looking too bad.

"We had nurses taking care of your appearance through the years, regular haircuts and shaving of course. We've also been massaging your muscles as to keep them active but do be warned that it might take some time before your use to walking again. As for your prosthetic limb, it's one of the more basic models out there. It contains a wire that runs to your muscles which triggers movement in the upper claw." The doctor explains rather quickly.

"I'd recommend finding a much more suitable limb as nowadays we-"

The sound of Dr Stari chocking was all I could here after that last part. As he dropped the mirror, I saw someone behind him with a wire on his throat. The wire cut deep as blood rushed out and the doctor struggled to breath. He soon dropped to the floor with blood dripping everywhere as the figure reviled themselves to be a rather large man in a suit and tie with sunglasses on. He looked around the room before turning his attention to me. I was scared stiff as he moved his hands around my throat. I felt the air leaving my lungs as I struggled to lose his grip. I flung myself off the hospital bed, but he still had me by the throat. I felt my vision fading as I thought of my family and how they might have been these past six years.

Just then, I heard the sound of a knife carving through skin, but it wasn't my skin. I felt my body drop to the floor as my vision return and my breathing commenced. I looked up to see that the guy in the suit had a surgical knife sticking out of his head. As his body fell to the floor, I saw a figure standing tall and proud. The figure had bandages rapped around his head with slight bits of brown hair sticking out. He was skinny but had a few muscles on his arms and had his left arm filled to the brim with tattoos. He stretched that very arm out to pick me up as I popped off the question.

"Who are you?" I said between my raspy breaths.

"Names Abe, this place isn't safe for you or me so we gotta' bail." He said in a rushed tone.

"Why? Are we being hunted?"

"Sort of, let's just say that a bunch of people want me dead and you're endanger of being mistaken as me."

Mistaken as him? I suppose with the bandages over the face he could look like anyone but why would someone want me dead?

I had no time to ponder as Abe grabbed an orange jacket that was sitting on my bed and put my arm around his shoulders. We ran as fast as we could through the hospital avoiding anyone we saw. As we finally reached the outside I heard gunshots coming from within the building. It was clear that whoever wanted Abe dead didn't intend on leaving any witnesses.

We ran off into a clearing where we ended up on a hill overlooking a harbor. Massive ships laid dormant awaiting their captains to take them to somewhere. Abe let me go as I struggled to stand on my own. He lit a cigarette and offered me one, though tempting, I ultimately declined.

"Where are we?" I asked

"We're in Britain." He flatly responded.

Britain! Why am I in Britain!

I pondered that as Abe threw the jacket at me.

"In there you'll find a ticket for a boat ride to America, some money and a phone. When you arrive in America, call a cab and go back to where you came from." Abe explained.

I was shocked

"Why would you give this to me?" I asked

"You've been through enough and it's clear that I have unfinished business here." Abe explained as he threw his cigarette on the ground and stamped it out.

I looked threw the pocket of the jacket to see all the items he told me about.

"Thank you, Abe, this means so much to-"

I looked up to see that Abe was gone. He must have ran off while I was riffling through the jacket. I took a look at the name of the ship on the ticket before making my way to the docks. I put the jacket on over my hospital clothes making sure to cover as much of my hook hand as possible.

It'll take me a while, but I will see my family again.

 **Hey! Thanks for making it to the end of the Story. I've go so much more plans for this series in the future so stick around. I will be hopefully updating this once a week (I might even update sooner if the demand is enough). I'm looking forward to making this but until then... Peace!**


	2. Insertion

"Sure is pouring tonight." the taxi person commented as we drove through the almost empty streets of Royal Woods.

I hummed in agreement as I continued to stare out the backseat window. After several weeks on the open sea and a good couple of hours in the back of an overpriced taxi, I'd finally made it to my home town. I looked down to the new attire I had recently bought, a pair of jeans, cheap running shoes and a white shirt topped off with the orange jacket Abe had given me. It was nothing flash, but it suited me fine. I had to keep it cost efficient since most of the cash had to go with the taxi ride… and I didn't want to spend all of Abe's money.

I felt the car slow down as I regained my focus. Looking outside I saw a familiar gas station though it looked like it had seen better days.

"Sorry sir but I'm almost out of gas, I won't be but a moment." The taxi driver said before I stopped him.

"Actually, I can walk from here." I stated as I took the cash out of my jacket and handed it to him.

I thanked him for the ride and set off under the intense droplets of water from the sky. I put the hood of my jacket up to keep my head from getting wet as I made my way down the street. I kept my hand and my hook in my pockets as to keep them out of sight and the rain. I recalled some of the houses as I walked by them, the street names and certain areas where me and my sisters would play. I saw the ever-famous park where my family and I would go just to relax and have fun. Though the park now looked old and rusted, the benches were littered with garbage as well as the side walk.

Then I stubbled across it, the house that had somehow contained my family for many years. Though, much like everything else I've seen, it's had better days. The yard was overgrown and rife with weeds, toys had been left forgotten and degraded, the house had cracks and damage all over it including a broken window. If not for the light housed within I'd almost think it was abandoned.

I took a good hard look at it before making my way to the door. Just as I arrived and was about to knock I heard yelling and screaming. I peered in through the window of the door to catch a glimpse of what was going on. Just then I saw what looked like Lucy marching down the stairs with an angry look on her face. She changed so much, she was taller with an angled face like my own, her hair was much longer and had a skull shaped clip near her fringe which still covered her eyes. Her outfit was much the same except she had a belt with a skull in the front and her socks only reached to her ankles. Judging from time she should be roughly fourteen and it most certainly showed. It pained me to see my little sister grow without me by her side.

"Lucy don't you dare run from me!" A voice boomed out of the house as Lucy walked off to the kitchen as several of my older sisters emerged from the top of the stairs.

First was Lynn who had grown much taller and gained quite a bit of muscles over the years. Her physique was that of a UFC fighter, not much of her face had changed but she appears to have cut her hair to neck length. She had on yoga pants with a red sports tank top and red striped joggers. She's presumably nineteen now.

Second was Luan who wasn't as tall as Lynn but was still taller then when I'd last seen her. She was much more modest compared to Lynn's shape but what she lacked in muscle she made up in appeal. She let her hair down and lost her braces thankfully for her. She had jean shorts, wore a yellow knitted sweater with her signature flower sticking out the top and brown loafers on her feet. She should be twenty at this point.

Third was Luna who stood slightly taller than Luan but not as tall as Lynn. She was rather skinny compared to Luan but was still rather curvy. Her hair looked the same except the sides were shaved much shorter than the top. She wore a purple tube top with scratched jeans and long purple boots that went up to her knees. I would presume she's twenty-one.

Fourth and final was Leni who was shorter than all the older sisters but much more mature. Her face looked relatively the same as it did when she was younger which makes sense since she was almost fully matured when I was young. Her hair on the other hand looked far messier and unkept. She wore a green dress which went to the end of her thighs and brown high heeled boots which went up to her ankles. She would be twenty-two at this point in time.

I could only watch as each of my older sisters ran down the stairs to catch up with Lucy. Most of them had a look of concern except Lynn who looked like she was about explode with rage. I could only imagine what Lucy had done to make Lynn that mad. I thought of moving over to the window by the kitchen, but I decided against it. As I went to knock on the door I heard crashing and banging. Furniture being destroyed and Lynn shouting remarks that would have gotten her in deep trouble in the past. I almost didn't act but then I heard one of my sisters crying loudly telling those two to stop.

I kicked down the door, rather easily I might add, and ran straight into the kitchen to see Lynn grabbing Lucy by the collar while the other three standing around witnessing the event.

"What's going on here?" I demanded in a forceful tone as the girls turned to face me.

"Who the fuck are you!?" Lynn yelled as she went to grab something from the draw.

Clearly not recognising me, I removed the soaked hood that covered my hair.

"Your brother." I said in a stoic manor.

The sisters gasped as they looked at me with surprise. Things changed however when Leni started walking towards me with her hand reached out. I could feel her soft hands as she cupped my face all the while with a look of disbelief.

"Lincoln?" She asked, "Is that… really you?"

I gently grabbed her arm and responded in a calm tone:

"Yeah, it's me."

She then broke down into tears and hugged me as hard as she possibly could. She buried her head into my chest as I looked at my other sisters. It took them a bit to come to terms with what they were seeing but they came around.

"Bro, I- I can't believe your back, I-" Luna stammered as she reached in and joined the hug.

Luan didn't say anything as she ran over and joined as well.

"You're not a ghost or apparition, are you?" Lucy asked as I could tears lightly falling.

"If I am then I'm not ready for the afterlife yet." I responded as I wiggled my hand free and signalled her to join of which she did.

Lynn stood there, looking at the floor with guilt. I presumed it was over the Lucy incident. Though I still wanted a response, now was not the time for it.

"Lynn, let's not spoil the moment." I said as I also signalled her to join.

She slowly but surely made her way over and hugged with the rest of them. I looked down to see that I was taller than all of them, by a head even. Papa always did say that I'd grow tall like him, but I never realised until now. So much time has passed, all my older sisters were adults now. I pondered a bit before realising something.

"Where's everybody else?" I asked with a smile on my face.

"u-up stairs a-asleep." Leni explained between sniffs.

I looked to the clock in the kitchen, it was rather late.

"What about mom and dad?" I asked but garnered no response.

I pulled myself away from the hug and looked to my sisters for answers… but all they gave me were sad looks. They stared at the floor, they bit their lips, Leni started to tear up again… I could only assume the worse.

"How?" I asked with shaky breath.

"Car accident." Luan responded.

I looked at my sisters. The mere mention of such would send anyone into tears. Six years in a coma and I come back to this. The worse part was I didn't cry, it was strange. When I was young my first goldfish died and my parents or sisters couldn't get me out of my room for a week. Now I hear that my parents have met the same fate and… nothing. Was it the coma?

Leni brought me back into reality when she grabbed my arm.

"Enough dwelling on that, it's late and you look like you haven't slept in years." Leni said in a weirdly perky tone "We'll talk more about everything tomorrow night, for now you can bunk with me in the main bedroom."

Leni pulled me off to our parent's old bedroom as my sisters turned to each other and proceeded to chat about something. I had so many questions and I presume so did they, but I guess that'll have to wait till tomorrow.

 **And that's chapter 2 ladies and gents. For those of you who noticed, yes I did pretty much use the opening of Metal Gear Solid 5 for the last chapter and trust me I will be using many more things. But trust me when I say that the story will be much more different. Anyway, see ya next week folks.**


	3. Changes

Funny how much time changes things…

That was all I could think as I slept through the night. Though even the soft patter of rain and presence of my sisters couldn't keep me from tossing and turning. When I finally got over the previous thought I would drift into a familiar dream that I'd been having for the past couple of weeks. Abe and I escaping the hospital, an event I keep replaying in my head every night. I don't know why, maybe I should see a psychiatrist, didn't Clyde have one-

*beep beep beep*

My eyes rushed open to the sound of an alarm next to me. The digital numbers flashed on six o'clock indicating it was time to get up. I tried to hit the reset button, but I couldn't find it. I tried to feel around for it but remembered I was using my claw hand. Frustrated, I got up to sit on the side of the bed and turned it off with my right arm. I looked at the prosthetic that use to be my left arm, you'd think that I would have gotten use to it after several weeks but if anything, it's gotten worse. My attention was thrown away by a certain rustling on the other side of the bed. I looked behind me to see Leni still fast asleep, she slept in the same bed with me for the whole night. I lightly chuckled as I remembered that Leni could sleep through an earthquake, setting that alarm meant nothing to her. I got up and made my way out of the room quietly. I turned my attention to the rest of the house, it was mostly the same as before my coma, messy and broken. I made my way over to the kitchen for a quick drink, I took heed to step over the mess that was caused last night. After a bit of time struggling to take the cap off, I'd finally poured a cup of orange juice. I tasted the tangy goodness of the drink before sculling it down and washing it up. Just as I turned to go back to Leni I saw my older sisters standing outside the kitchen. They looked beyond surprised, maybe they thought I was just a dream before?  
"Morning…" I said happily "What's wrong?"

I finally noticed where their eyes were looking.

"Oh, yeah, about that." I awkwardly blurted out before raising my left arm "Apparently it was torn off in an explosion… the same one that caused my coma."

Just as I said that my older sisters ramped into a number of different questions which I couldn't quite make out. Through the chaos I noticed the younger ones on the stairs… or at least some of the younger ones.

I saw Lucy clearly and one who looked to be Lisa. She looked similar to her younger self, she was slightly taller and had her hair up in a bun. Other than that, she was the same. She would be ten years old.

Though the other two on the stairs looked… different. It was clearly Lana and Lola but something wasn't quite right. They were much taller now and started developing a slight curve in their faces but the rest of their appearance was startling. They were both wearing tank tops and short skirts of their appropriate colours. Lana didn't have her cap and Lola didn't have her tiara. The only way I could tell them apart aside from their colour was their hair styles which had stayed the same since when they were young. They would be twelve now.

I took a good long look at them as they did me. Without saying a word, they all ran up and gave me a hug. I was expecting that from the twins, but Lisa surprised me in that regard. I knelt down to hug them and couldn't help but give a hearty laugh, I was just that happy. I looked back to my older sisters who were smiling at me. I stood back up and asked:

"Now where's Lori and Lily?"

My question was met with silence though that quickly ended when Leni spoke up.

"We'll explain in the living room after you tell us your story."

The sisters made their way to the aforementioned room as I stood back up.

I have a lot of explaining to do.  
-

"And then I arrived here" I concluded as my sisters sat in awe.

It was apparent that they had no idea what had happen to me or where I was, must have been awful for them.

"So, I gave my side. Now you give yours." I asked.

An awkward silence followed as each of my sisters turned to one another. Ironically Lucy was the one to break the silence.

"We didn't know where you'd gone really, we were all cooped up in here waiting for you to arrive home and surprise you for your birthday." Lucy explained.

"It wasn't until it got dark that mom and dad started calling around, no one knew where you were or what you were doing." Luna took over.

"Mother and father alerted the authorities and put out word that you were missing. Everyone in the neighbourhood was on the look out for you but that proved futile." Lisa explained.

"Things only went down hill from there. Four years later mom and dad were out, their relationship wasn't the best at that point to say the least, apparently dad flew off into the side of the road and…" Luan chocked at the end as she looked to the floor.

"Lori was officially considered the adult of the house but, of course, she wanted nothing to do with us." Lynn complained.

"Lori agreed to take Lilly with her to keep up her fair share of the guardian work and moved in with Bobby. We haven't really seen her much after that." Leni sadly explained.

The house went dead silent as I guessed that was the end of the story.

"What about the search for me?" I asked.

"After five years they had given up on the search and declared you dead, we were going to have a funeral, but funds haven't been so good as of late." Luan answered.

I looked down to the floor, surly someone at that hospital must have contacted my family. Even the doctor at least knew a bit about me, it just doesn't make sense.

"Doesn't matter, I'm back and I'm going to make sure I never abandon you all ever again." I proclaimed to my family.

They looked back at me with smiles on their face. Broken but hopeful smiles.

 **That's all for this chapter folks, sorry if this was a short chapter. I've been having storm issues at the moment and I've been without power for a couple of days and I just got power back today. I promise next chapter will be a longer episode as I've now gotten exposition out of the way. Remember to leave a review cause I like reading those. Till next time, peace!**


	4. Cancelled

**Hey everyone,**

 **So as you may have read in the bio, I've cancelled this fanfiction. Before you go getting disappointed, I may have cancelled the fanfiction but I am not done with this story. As it is, I don't think the story in this fanfic turned out the way I wanted it so I decided to scrap this project and move on to a new one with a very similar story as this one. So if you'd like to continue reading this story then please check out 'The Hounds of Loud' (It should be uploaded after this).**

 **My reasons for canceling this one are:**

 **1\. The story turn out- I didn't like how this story turned out, especially the beginning which I thought was rushed and explained very little. I also didn't like how I was going with the Abe plot line since he was connected to Lincoln's backstory in some way but I couldn't decide what backstory that was.**

 **2\. Word demand- I didn't like how short my chapters were especially considering that I only updated once a week.**

 **3\. Exposition- I hate writing exposition and I thought I put way too much into this.**

 **4\. First Person and Tense- I hated writing in the first person and I hated how I kept switching the tense.**

 **Anyway, those are my reasons. It's been a fun ride but I want to make and do better. I hope you've enjoyed so far and please check out the other story for more.**


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